New KNT Toy To Be Made?!

[felineki]

I don't think they've actually been released yet, I haven't seen any pictures aside from the promotional ones. It should be out sometime this month (unless it gets delayed yet again).

[cuchulain]

I would really like to have one of these, but I almost feel like I'm too old to enjoy it at this point.  If only they had made something like this when I originally watched SPC (or even released the UK figures).  I STILL may have to buy one.

[felineki]

I just put in an order for one. It's a bit expensive, but as an SPC/KNT fan I want to help support the show and merchandise related to it. I'd love to see this sell well and have other characters follow.

[felineki]

Looks like it's been released. You can see lots of photos of the finished product here. The box sleeve has artwork by Tenko.

[spartacat]

About time too. This thing was supposed to be out in time for Christmas 2012, then sometime in December 2012, then February 2013, and finally March 2013. Looks like they just went up on ebay this morning

[Violet]

Yay for customizable expressions and higher quality than the old figures from the 90s!  I hope these sell well so they'll make some more characters.

[LonePhantom756]

Wow...the designers really went the full distance with this toy, didn't they? Customization of facial features; the "Extra Topping" battle armor, all three incarnations of the Ginzu/Masamasa Sword...seriously, if I get some spare money and find it up for sale on someplace like Amazon, I might definitely give serious thought towards making a purchase. Anything to show my enduring love for my first real introduction to anime and furry series.

[felineki]

My figure just arrived! I'll share my impressions later.

[Tigriss]

I was going to get this after I bought the artbook, but now I'm having a hard time deciding. It's a really high-quality toy and the customizable expressions make it extra-cool. I can't wait to have this Yattarou toy towering over all my mini KNT figures just like he always did in the KNT ending credits.

[felineki]

Here's my review of the ES Gokin Yattarou figure.

Contents
Yattarou
Toritsukkun
2 Swords
Sheath
Shuriken
4 pairs of hands (closed fist, open palms, pointing, and open fist for holding weapons)
3 pairs of eyes (normal, angry, closed)
4 mouths (neutral, smiling, half open, wide open)
Mega Up Armor (2 shoes, 2 forearms, 2 shoulders, 2 hips, helmet crest, face mask, breastplate w/ crest attachment points, breastplate w/o crest attachment points)
Stand w/ flexible support arm

Articulation
Yattarou:
Head ball joint
Neck ball joint
Clavicle ball joints (he can shrug his shoulders)
Shoulder ball joints
Elbow hinges
Elbow swivels
Wrist ball joints
Waist ball joint
Hip ball joints
Hip swivels
Ankle ball joints
Tail swivel
Toritsukkun:
Head hinge
Beak hinge
Neck hinge
Eye swivel
Wing ball joints
Hip ball joints
Knee hinges
Ankle hinges
Tail ball joint

Impressions
Quality is very nice. Paint applications are nice and clean, no mistakes I can find. Quite a bit of articulation is packed in, the SD nature of the figure means he doesn't end up being super flexible, but it's definitely not for a lack of trying. I do wish they had added knee hinges though, I know Tongmeng EX's figure had them. Sculpt is nice and accurate, right down to the little details.

Parts that are yellow in the show are a nice semi-metallic gold, helmet's lens is a semi-metallic blue. The parts that are light blue in the show (belt, Mega Up shoulder armor, etc.) ended up being a bit darker and more grayish than the early promotional pics let on, but it doesn't look too bad in the end.

Sword blades and shuriken are a very nice shiny silver. Each sword has its proper handle and hilt details. Since the end of the sheath becomes the handle of the second sword in the show, the end of the sheath was made removable here for when you want to display him using both swords. This is a nice concept in terms of attention to detail, but I find the sheath end doesn't want to stay in place well and the seam it forms is a little distracting.

Metal parts seem to be limited to the chest block and Mega Up breastplates. The former is enough to give him just a little bit of weight when you pick him up. The inclusion of 2 Mega Up breastplates is a very nice touch. One is for displaying on Yattarou, the other is for displaying on Toritsukkun. The latter has attachment points for the helmet crest, the former doesn't. In comparison, the old Edomae set's breastplate's attachment points were a little distracting when displayed on Yattarou. The way the Mega Up breastplate attaches to Yattarou's chest is rather ingenious, the red triangle on his chest is a spring-backed joint that a peg in the inside of the breastplate fits into. The helmet crest had two swappable parts that fit into the round opening in the center, one is a transparent blue lens for displaying on Yattarou, the other is an attachment point for attaching it to the breastplate on Toritsukkun. I find the latter is a bit hard to remove once in place.

Helmet is removable to replace face parts. You can mix and match the 3 pairs of eyes and 4 mouths to create a total of 12 unique expressions. The Mega Up face mask is a separate part that is attached in place of the normal face parts. One very interesting detail here is that the head piece inside the helmet actually has some details from the helmet-less model sheet sculpted into it. The round joints on the sides of the head, hair, and ears are there. But the topknot is missing due to a slot for attaching the helmet being in its place.

Toritsukkun's neck can slide inwards to made it a bit shorter for when he attaches to Yattarou. His eyes can also rotate to face forward while the head faces up, just as seen on the model sheets. A stand with a flexible arm that can plug into Yattarou's back is included. You can display him jumping and such. However, I don't think there's a way to attach the arm to the fully Mega Upped Yattarou, which is too bad since it would have been cool to display him in a flying pose.

The packaging is also nice, particularly the back of the box which has a cool "mid-transformation" shot displaying the Mega Up armor flying in toward Yattarou, and the outer sleeve which has a new piece of artwork by character designer Noritaka Suzuki.

Those are my initial impressions. I'd highly recommend this figure to any SPC/KNT fans, although it seems to be hard to get a hold of for a decent price. The manufacturer's suggested price is $428 HK, which comes out to about $55 US, but most people seem to be asking for double that. The fact that it's not being distributed in Japan also means there are fewer places to buy it from. But it is one of first pieces of SPC/KNT merchandise to come out in decades, so if you can afford it, I say go for it. The fact that this figure seems to be considered the first of a subseries (ES-PC01 as opposed to the usual ES-## , "PC" presumably being "Pizza Cats") has me looking forward to future entries. Personally, in addition to Pururun and Sukashii, I'd love to see a Karamaru with Komusoutector parts.

[sans soul]

Yikes... pricey... but thanks for the awesome and fully detailed product review! That is super helpful. 

*

[usbcheater]

I just bought ES-Gokin PC-01 Speedy from Ebay. It was €99.63 which is a huge price for me but with the DVD set coming up I couldn't resist!
Luckily a dude was interested in my Shogun Warriors Grendizer and I was able to sell it to him, so that worked out for the better xD

I do not plan on getting the Supreme Catatonic, but I do hope Polly comes out as well!  

[Tigriss]

Wow, thanks for the very thorough review, felineki.

[sjonnoh]

Looks like it's been released. You can see lots of photos of the finished product here. The box sleeve has artwork by Tenko.

Wow thats some neat stuff. To think they still want to continue making all these things about knt 

Oh and hi everyone, long time no see

[usbcheater]

I totally forgot to post here xD

 

I got my ES Gokin Speedy for a few weeks now, the build is good though I kept having issues with the neck.
And the back part of the Ginzu sword is a pain to keep in place. It didn't came with a pizza though that was fixed by stealing it from Mikey.
Over all I am pretty happy to just display him in default mode In front of the place where I will be putting up my KNT/SPC/MMPR dvd sets when I buy them in the next two months.

I am sad that there's no news on the ES Gokin Nyagou King yet. At least an update on the paint job would make me happy.
Though not as much as an ES Gokin release of the other Pizza Cats

[felineki]

BIG NEWS!

Earlier this month Art Storm had a display at Chara Hobby Hong Kong. On display was the prototype for the Es Gokin Supreme Cataonic we've known about for a while. But in addition to that, design renders for ES Gokin Pururun and Sukashii were also revealed! Photos can be seen here.

[KageReneko]

Oh Nyaggo... Be merciful... 

[ANE]

This is very good news. Thanks for the update felineki 

My wallet may have just melted, but I don't care. I should have plenty of time to save up before any of these hit the shops.

[usbcheater]

 !! I am sorry to say this guys but I hope these toys have big delays. That way we can save up better x_x

Let's see, I paid 100 euro's for Speedy plus 25 customs costs. So I'll need at least 375 which is exactly 5 months of saving.
I am hoping for a end of the year release for the Great Catatonic and late 2015 and late 2016 for Guido and Polly.

That way our wallets will know mercy 

[felineki]

If there's anything this line is known for, it's delays and long waits. So you'll probably have plenty of time to save up. My relatives just paid me for catsitting for them while they went on vacation; I think I'll put that money away towards these.